INTERNATIONAL CTIA WIRELESS® 2012, NEW ORLEANS, USA, 7 May 2012 — IEEE, the world's largest professional association advancing technology for humanity, today announced that it will be spearheading the global industry effort to evolve camera-phone image quality. The new IEEE P1858™ – Draft Standard for Camera Phone Image Quality (CPIQ) – development project is designed to specify methods and metrics for measuring and testing camera-phone image quality, enabling consumers to more easily and accurately compare and choose camera phones and to ultimately enjoy a better user experience.

With the launch of the IEEE P1858 working group, IEEE is building on the CPIQ initiative of the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A), and making a strategic addition to the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) suite of mobile-video standards designed to improve the customer experience. IEEE has acquired I3A’s CPIQ program and other assets, and the new IEEE effort involves many of the same corporate members that contributed to I3A’s five-year-old groundbreaking activity.

“IEEE is the obvious choice to take CPIQ to the next level,” said Lisa Walker, president of I3A. “The overlap in membership between IEEE and I3A will allow for continuity in work toward a globally relevant CPIQ standard, and the competency that IEEE has built around assessing mobile-video quality provides an opportunity for an easy transition and expansion of the work to important, related areas such as video.”

Though they may possess identical image-resolution capabilities, today’s camera phones produce vastly different quality images. Vendors and consumers lack sufficient standardized metrics to compare one handset to the next. IEEE P1858 is designed to create a CPIQ rating system that will help consumers identify the camera phones that best meet their needs.

“Camera phones are the device of choice with consumers, but they need a more accurate and reliable way to ensure that the camera phones they purchase deliver the image quality they desire—it’s not just about the megapixels,” said George John, ad-interim chair of the IEEE P1858 working group and principal program manager with Microsoft. “This is the need that I3A uniquely identified in 2007, and we believe IEEE provides the ideal environment—tremendous worldwide and technological scope, proven abilities for building consensus and a globally respected standards-development process—for building on I3A’s groundbreaking work.”

I3A successfully identified the fundamental attributes that contribute to CPIQ, as well as existing standards and other useful information related to those attributes. The IEEE P1858 working group intends to continue that effort by defining a standardized suite of objective and subjective test methods for measuring camera-phone image quality, as well as tools and test methods to facilitate standards-based communication and comparison among carriers, handset manufacturers and component vendors.

“We applaud I3A for the crucial work that it accomplished in ushering the CPIQ specifications to where they are today,” said Karen Kenney, senior director, IEEE-SA. “This is an exciting new opportunity for IEEE that fits nicely with many of our other established standards activities. We look forward to driving the CPIQ standard to fruition and supporting its market implementation through a suite of available services, including access to conformity assessment programs.”

PC, tablet, smartphone, camera component and sensor manufacturers; application developers; telecom service providers and other interested parties are invited to participate in the IEEE P1858 working group. For more information, please visit the working group website.

IEEE-SA is exhibiting in booth #4013 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans during International CTIA WIRELESS® 2012, 8-10 May.

About the IEEE Standards Association
The IEEE Standards Association, a globally recognized standards-setting body within IEEE, develops consensus standards through an open process that engages industry and brings together a broad stakeholder community. IEEE standards set specifications and best practices based on current scientific and technological knowledge. The IEEE-SA has a portfolio of over 900 active standards and more than 500 standards under development. For more information visit the IEEE-SA website.

About IEEE
IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional association, is dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Through its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities, IEEE is the trusted voice on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics. Learn more at the IEEE website.